The author's own Facebook page. It seems he has many talents.
Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET

When you've sold millions of books and won awards for your writing, the pressure is off.

You can saunter from one party to another. You can perform readings to packed auditoriums. You can, just occasionally, wander into bookstores (if you can find one) and simply enjoy yourself while counting the number of times you see your name on the shelves.

Then you come home, pour yourself a substantial snifter, log on to Amazon and write a gushing review of one of your own works. Just as a nightcap, you add a scathing anonymous review of one of your rivals'.

That, in my fanciful imagination, is what best-selling British crime writer RJ Ellory seems to have admitted to doing.

Ellory finally came clean. He wrote on Facebook: "Over the last 10 years I have posted approximately 12 reviews of my own books, and I also criticized a book written by Stuart MacBride, and another by Mark Billingham, both of whom had done nothing to warrant such criticism."

About the author

Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world.
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